Nutrition

The human right to adequate food is realized when individuals and communities have a healthy, productive and active life, made possible by their nutritional well-being over the entirety of their life spans.

The nutritional dimension must be taken into account at all phases of the food system - from the production of seeds, cultivation, harvesting, marketing, transformation, and purchase all the way to consumption and biological and cultural utilization at the individual level - if nutritional well-being is to be achieved.

Instead of adopting a holistic approach, oftentimes research, policy, trade, and civil society engagement divide their energies between food production on the one hand and malnutrition on the other. The clear outcome of delinking the human right to adequate food from its nutritional dimension is that food trade profits co-exist with increased hunger, food shortages, and social instability.

Discussions about food are inseparable from those about nutrition in the context of food sovereignty. These discussions should touch upon the diversity, quantity, nutritional composition, quality and type of food production; who produces what, how and where and who makes these decisions; access to and control over productive resources and physical and economic access to food and water; preparation methods; information on diversity and the recommended nutritional balance of diets; and potential health benefits and risks of various foods such as ultra-processed foods, saturated fats, and genetically modified foods, among others.

FIAN International works to close the structural separation and legal isolation between relevant human rights structures and seeks to foster a more holistic understanding of the right to adequate food that encompasses its nutritional dimension in order to ensure the realization of the right for all women, children and men.

Last year’s global political scenario led FIAN International to raise important questions on the future of human rights and bring the root causes of right to food violations under the spotlight, as presented in its 2017 Annual Report.